The field of invention involves autonomic management of resources in or across networks. More specifically, delegation or retrieval of autonomic management functionality to or from self-managing resources which provide services in or across networks.
Autonomic management regards systems or devices that have the ability to self-manage, i.e., manage their own function, operation, output, etc. Autonomic management within or among networks refers to the self-managing characteristics of distributed networks. These self-managing characteristics can include adapting to unpredicted changes inside of or outside of the network. These changes may be made without demonstrating the intrinsic complexity for making the adaptations to operators or users of the networks. An autonomic management system (AMS) of a network makes decisions on its own, using high-level policies or rules or standards. These AMSs may monitor and optimize network resources and automatically adapt themselves and the managed resources to changing conditions.
An autonomic computing framework can be composed of Autonomic Components (AC) interacting with each other. An AC may contain two main control loops (local and global) with sensors (for self-monitoring), effectors (for self-adjustment), and planers/adapters for exploiting policies based on self- and environment awareness. In some autonomic computing frameworks, central managers may also be used to carry out fixed functions with predefined and static relationships. Also, peer-to-peer frameworks may be employed with fixed functionality, and predefined and static relationships between peer managers and components.